Strona 321 z 483

We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its

environs and endeavouring to identify every spot which might

relate to the most animating epoch of English history. Our little

voyages of discovery were often prolonged by the successive

objects that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the

illustrious Hampden and the field on which that patriot fell. For

a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable

fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and

self-sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments and the

remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains and

look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had

eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless,

into my miserable self.